Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Los Angeles Is Burning

I grew up in Los Angeles, a true native son now daughter. One of my most vivid childhood memories is of a brush fire coming over the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains while at grade school. This was the day after the school had been closed because of the Bel Air fire then raging. I watched as water bombers forced the fire back. Since then I have seen far too many fires too fucking close up.

While I have never been given an evacuation order I have been put on stand by for one several times. Southern California is mostly a Mediterranean Chaparral ecology and large scale fires come with the territory. Those of us who live here have made peace with the idea that we could be burned out at any time with no notice.

Now Los Angeles is burning again. This looks to be one of the really bad ones where the combination of drought, heat and winds create a monster that can incinerate a neighborhood in seconds. Maybe it will continue to burn through the mountains and spare the cities along the mountains edge or maybe it will sweep down and wreck havoc in those cities. Now chaos rules, the smallest change in wind can save or doom a city. In Los Angeles the Lords of Entropy hold sway for now.